Rocky Frisco

Biography

Born Don Roscoe Joseph III in Saint Louis, Missouri on July 26, 1937, Rocky Frisco is the pianist with the J. J. Cale Band.[1] Frisco and Cale both attended Tulsa Central High School in the 1950s, with Frisco graduating in 1955[2] and Cale in 1956. They played together in Gene Crose's band starting in 1957.[2] In the Fall of 1958, Rocky moved to Pennsylvania to form a band for Clyde Stacy. When Stacy retired in 1959, Rocky became lead singer for the band, The Four Flames, recording a Columbia Harmony album in New York entitled, "The Big Ten," as "Rocky Curtiss and the Harmony Flames." Frisco rejoined the Cale Band in 1994 and toured the USA and Europe that Summer and Fall, with TV broadcasts from France, Germany, The Netherlands and England. The Cale band's 1996 tour included a concert on March 29 at Carnegie Hall on a double-bill with Levon and The Band. Rocky can be heard on the J. J. Cale CDs, "JJ Cale Live," "To Tulsa And Back" and "Roll On" as well as "Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival" DVD set and the JJ Cale Band's DVD tour video, "To Tulsa and Back" From Time/Life. In late May of 2008, Rocky was inducted into the Oklahoma Blues Hall of Fame with a Lifetime Achievement Award. On September 17, 2009, Rocky was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame as a winner of the Eldon Shamblin Session Musician Award. Rocky also sometimes acts in films and videos and can be seen in the Short Film, "Melvin, A Midwestern Tale," and the 2003 Disney remake of "Where The Red Fern Grows." During the mid-1960s, Rocky, disgusted with the music business after having thousands of dollars in royalties embezzled by an A & R man he trusted, quit playing and moved to Ontario Canada and worked for IBM and raced MG's and Mini Coopers at Harewood Acres and Mosport. He drove a Morris Mini in the preliminary races for the 1967 Canadian Grand Prix, reverting to the name, Don Joseph. In his spare time, Rocky writes novels and restores English Austin and Morris Mini Coopers and MG (car)s and sometimes runs for political office in his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma.